Elms Farm Community Primary School is a wonderful school both for students and staff alike. Welcome to Year 4!

Year 4

Class Teachers, Miss Morton (Simmonds Class), Miss Chumber and Mr Hunt (Lewis Class)  are delighted to welcome you to the 2022-2023 academic year supported by our amazing TA, Miss Hickin.  Our classes are named after female sports stars  Ellie Simmonds and Denise Lewis, both of whom have connections with the region. Year 4 is a very important year to prepare children for upper Key Stage Two. It is an opportunity to embed all the learning that has been undertaken so far and deepening and widening their knowledge across the curriculum.

Students have returned to school within the new norm with great determination to succeed and grow. In English, techniques and processes taken from Talk For Writing, (https://www.talk4writing.com/about/ ) develop writing in an interesting and creative way.  

Writing includes a range of Fiction text types:

Change stories, Defeat the Monster, Quest Story, Wishing Tale, Journey Tale

Non-Fiction text times include:

Explanation, Recount, Instruction, Information, Persuasion, Discussion

Supporting these text types, poetry is also explored throughout the year.

Reading is a focus across the school and this is reflected in day to day experiences of student life in Year 4. High quality texts and class reads are enjoyed regularly. This year, Students discover stories from a variety of authors such as: Hans Christian Anderson, Caroline Lawrence, Cressida Cowell, Katherine Rundell, Michael Morpurgo, Jules Verne, S.F Said and Tony Bradman. Excitedly, the year group is also working with author Larraine Harrison who is gathering research into the impact of author engagement on students.

Topic (Foundation subjects)  provide exciting cross-curricular links and writing opportunities and stimulating themes with a one each half term across the year.  Below is an outline of the Topic questions for this year:

Home or Abroad?

What did the Romans do for Us?

Why was Britain invaded by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings?

What is a biome? Why are rainforests important to our lives?

Why should we protect our oceans?

In Reading, we expect children to read at home daily to support their learning. In class we have been focusing on preparing thought provoking whole class mastery lessons which have been raising attainment for all learners. During these lessons we focus on the key reading skills including; retrieval, inference and authorial intent.

Mastery Mathematics is taught using practical apparatus, leading to pictorial representation and finally to abstract problem solving and reasoning. Children engage with a range of apparatus to secure and deepen their understanding. 

Also, children are encouraged to take part in battles with teachers and fellow students on Times Tables Rock Stars. At the end of Year 4, the children will be taking a national times table test with the expectation they know their times tables up to 12.

With current factors  considered, homework and communications are accessed through Class Dojo (https://www.classdojo.com) and parents and carers can access updates about current learning, behaviour and successes. Daily learning includes: spellings, times tables practise and daily reading. If children are struggling, they are always encouraged to seek out a teacher who will happily support them.

The school subscribe to a number of different APPS and websites for students to use including: mymaths.co.uk activelearnprimary.co.uk ttrockstars.com classdojo.com

Please contact class teachers if you need any support with passwords and log in details to these sites.

We have P.E. on Monday and Wednesdays and expect all children to take part as part of a healthy lifestyle. Students can come to school dressed in PE suitable clothing and footwear all day. In Autumn term students have learned about invasion games such as football and excitedly gymnastics in the sports hall. Music lessons are on Wednesday afternoons and are taught by an expert musician.

Year Four is a fantastic, fun-filled year which will pave the way for future success!

Thank you for visiting our page.